Many people are asking the US: Did the US respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia when US-led NATO bombed Belgrade? Did the US respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq when it launched military strikes on Baghdad on unwarranted charges? Did the US respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan when US drones wantonly killed innocent people in Kabul and other places? Did the US respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries when it instigated color revolutions and meddled in their internal affairs all around the world?
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on February 23, 2022
Category: Quotes
Wang Wenbin on US state terrorism and the assassination of Qasem Soleimani
The assassination of Qasem Soleimani is another example of how the US has wantonly undermined the norms governing international relations based on the UN Charter. It is also a war crime. The US could go so far as to perform the ‘targeted killing’ of a sovereign state’s military leader, on top of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians around the world. All these illegal and brutal acts have been hidden by the US behind the facade of the ‘rules-based international order’. Facts have proved time and again that what the US really cares about is no more than the rules that meet its needs and serve its interests. What it is committed to is nothing but an order that maintains the US’s hegemony and enables it to override the international community. But such rules and order that violate international law will not be accepted by the people in Iran, the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on January 4, 2022
Happy Birthday Chairman Mao
An increasingly strong, prosperous, modern, socialist China is your greatest legacy.
We must hold high the great banner of Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao’s banner is the banner of the united revolution of the whole Party, the whole army and the whole nation, and the banner of the international communist movement.
Deng Xiaoping
Quote: The detention of Julian Assange shows the reality of ‘freedom of speech’ in the West
It seems that anyone can enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech as long as they refrain from criticizing or disclosing the unspeakable crimes committed by the US. Otherwise, they may end up behind bars like Julian Assange. When the US next calls for safeguarding freedom of the press and freedom of speech, people will remember what happened to Mr Assange.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 13, 2021
Quote: The US must be held to account for its abuses of human rights
While the US talked about democracy and human rights at the ‘Summit for Democracy’, the innocent Afghan people who were gunned down by the US military were brushed aside and their families had no place to complain about their grievances. This is the harsh reality brought to the world by the so-called democracy and human rights advocated by the US. We condemn the brutal military intervention by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in the name of democracy and human rights. We call on the international community to look into the US military’s war crimes of killing innocent civilians around the world and hold it accountable.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 14, 2021
Zhao Lijian: Britain is in no position to lecture China on human rights
On human rights, the UK is by no means doing a great job. In its hundreds of years of colonial history, the UK has committed numerous crimes in many parts of the world. Systemic racial discrimination, violence, provocation and hate crimes against ethnic minorities are on the rise. In immigration detention centers, conditions are poor and the rights of immigrants are seriously violated. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should conduct investigations into the UK military’s killing of civilians and acts of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq and hold the troops accountable. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should return Chagos to Mauritius. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should not have sat idly by as the resurgence and spread of COVID-19 claimed the lives of nearly 150,000 citizens. The UK should reflect on its own problems and earnestly redress them before wantonly criticizing others.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on December 15, 2021
Xi Jinping: communism is our highest ideal
Socialism is the primary stage of communism, and communism is our highest ideal. What we are doing now belongs to the primary stage of socialism, but we must stay true to why we started out and stay true to our loftiest goal. We cannot be evasive and vague with our words on this issue.
Speech at the meeting of the political bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee on promoting Three Stricts and Three Earnests, 2016
Wang Wenbin on ‘democracy’ as a tool for imposing hegemony
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference on 19 October 2021, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made an important point about how the US government, via such measures as its forthcoming ‘Leaders’ Summit for Democracy’, is attempting to use its own specific definition of democracy as a means of inciting division and confrontation.
Democracy is not a slogan. One should not use “democracy” as an excuse to cover up one’s own incompetence and failure in governance, and let its people pay a heavy price for rampant racial discrimination, enlarging social divide and widening wealth gap.
Democracy is not a dogma. One should not try to turn democracy into Coca-Cola, which tastes the same across the world with the syrup produced by one country, and deprive countries of the right and freedom to explore their own democratic path, in total disregard of the diversity of history, culture, social system and development stage of countries.
Democracy is not a pretext for imposing hegemony. One should not use ideology and values as tools to oppress other countries and advance geopolitical strategy, incite division and confrontation in the international arena and push the world back to the dangerous Cold War era under the banner of democracy.
What is urgently needed now is not a so-called “summit for democracy” or establish an “alliance of democracies”, but efforts to strengthen global coordination and cooperation on the basis of observing the norms governing international relations represented by the UN Charter and jointly address global challenges such as the ongoing pandemic and climate change, and advance the cause of human progress.
Provoking estrangement, division and confrontation in the name of democracy is an act of trampling on and betraying the democratic spirit and values. It will only bring turbulence and chaos to the world and undermine peace and development of mankind. This is bound to be resisted and opposed by the international community.
Hua Chunying: Washington DC is the birthplace and headquarters of economic coercion
A powerful quote from Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying about the US use of economic warfare against developing countries.
For a long time, the US has been engaged in unilateral bullying practices, imposing long-term sanctions on Cuba, the DPRK, Iran, Venezuela, among other countries. Washington DC is the birthplace and headquarters of economic coercion. The US, through its policies and actions, has provided the world with textbook examples of coercive diplomacy, which means achieving one’s strategic goals with military threats, political isolation, economic sanctions and technical blockade.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on September 29, 2021
Quote: Hua Chunying on capitalist democracy versus socialist democracy
From Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on August 20, 2021
“What is democracy? Who gets to define it? How to judge whether a country is democratic? These rights should not be monopolized by the US and its few allies. Chinese democracy is people’s democracy while the US’ is money democracy; the Chinese people enjoy substantial democracy while Americans have democracy only in form; China has a whole-process democracy while the US has voting democracy that comes every four years… China’s socialist democracy puts the people front and center.”
Quote: Hua Chunying on the reality of US militarism
From Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on August 17, 2021
“Wherever the US sets foot in, be it Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, we see turbulence, division, broken families, deaths and other scars in the mess it has left. The US power and role is destructive rather than constructive… We hope the US could make a serious reflection on its wilful military intervention and belligerent policy, stop using military and human rights as an excuse to arbitrarily interfere in other countries’ internal affairs and undermine peace and stability in other countries and regions.”
The Communist Party of China is a Marxist party
A key message from Xi Jinping’s speech on the centenary of the CPC: the CPC is a Marxist party, and China’s success is proof of the enduring validity of Marxism.
Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology upon which our party and country are founded; it is the very soul of our party and the banner under which it strives. The Communist Party of China upholds the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts. At the fundamental level, the capability of our party and the strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics are attributable to the fact that Marxism works.
Xi Jinping, 1 July 2021
China stands on the side of the developing world
Foreign Minister Wang Yi on 25 June 2021:
In the five decades since joining the United Nations, China has upheld the legitimate rights and interests of fellow developing countries and spoken up for the developing world. Past, present and in the future, China always stands together with developing countries. China’s vote in the United Nations is always for the well-being of developing countries and for justice in the world.
China stands with Cuba against the blockade
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian on 24 June 2021:
China always believes that we should respect the right of each country to independently choose its social system and development path, uphold international order based on international law, safeguard international fairness and justice, and oppose unilateral coercive measures imposed on other countries by military, political, economic or other means. China urges the US to immediately and fully lift its economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba, which is the universal call of the international community.
When Che Guevara met Mao Zedong
On the 93rd anniversary of Che Guevara’s birth, we celebrate the friendship between socialist Cuba and socialist China.
A fascinating transcript of their meeting in Beijing in November 1960 can be found here.
Xi Jinping quote on multipolarity
The G7 is meeting with a shared vision of “market democracies” setting the rules of international relations. What this means in reality is the continuation of US-led imperialism. In contrast, China proposes a multipolar world where every country can choose its development path. This is explained by the following quote from Xi Jinping.
Keeping up with the times, one can not live in the 21st century while thinking the old fashion, lingering in the age of colonial expansion or with a zero-sum mentality of the Cold War.
In the face of the profoundly changed international landscape and the objective need for the world to rally closely together like passengers in the same boat, all countries should join hands in building a new type of international relations featuring cooperation and mutual benefit, and all peoples should work together to safeguard world peace and promote common development.
We stand for the sharing of dignity by all countries and peoples in the world. All countries, irrespective of size, strength and wealth, are equal. The right of the people to independently choose their development paths should be respected, interference in the internal affairs of other countries opposed and international fairness and justice maintained. Only the wearer of the shoes knows if they fit or not. Only the people can best tell if the development path they have chosen for their country suits or not.
We stand for the sharing of the fruits of development by all countries and peoples in the world. Every country, while pursuing its own development, should actively facilitate the common development of all countries. There can not be an enduring development in the world when some countries are getting richer and richer while others languishing in prolonged poverty and backwardness. Only when all countries achieve common development can there be better development in the world. Such practices as beggaring-thy-neighbor, shifting crisis on others and feathering one’s nest at the expense of others are both immoral and unsustainable.
Xi Jinping, Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Peace and Development in the World, 2013
Only the socialist system can eradicate poverty
Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not capitalism. You can tell from the fact that life continues to dramatically improve for the masses of the people. If the capitalist class was in charge, there would still be widespread hunger, homelessness and illiteracy.
Deng Xiaoping made this point very effectively:
Ours is an economically backward country with a population of one billion. If we took the capitalist road, a small number of people in certain areas would quickly grow rich, and a new bourgeoisie would emerge along with a number of millionaires — all of these people amounting to less than one per cent of the population — while the overwhelming majority of the people would remain in poverty, scarcely able to feed and clothe themselves. Only the socialist system can eradicate poverty
China can only take the socialist road, 1987
Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism’
What many in the West don’t understand: socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism.’ The extent to which Chinese socialism has improved people’s lives is historically unprecedented. It could not have been achieved under capitalism.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism.’ Both history and our present reality tell us that only socialism can save China – and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China. This is the conclusion of history, the choice of our people.
Xi Jinping, 2019
The source of this quote is an essay by Xi Jinping, Uphold and Develop Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, the text of which is reproduced below.
Continue reading Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism’
Nelson Mandela on the Chinese Revolution
The Chinese Revolution has been an inspiration to freedom fighters globally, Nelson Mandela among them. He said:
The revolution in China was a masterpiece, a real masterpiece. If you read how they fought that revolution, you believe in the impossible. It’s just miraculous.
And in his famous autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, he wrote:
I read works by and about Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro. In Edgar Snow’s brilliant Red Star Over China I saw that it was Mao’s determination and non-traditional thinking that had led him to victory.
China gave important support to the South Africans freedom struggle, including providing military training to the earliest armed units of the ANC. In 1999, Mandela became the first South African president to visit China.
